Reimagining Magic Kingdom: An Armchair-Imagineered Blue Sky Build-Out of Walt Disney World’s Iconic Theme Park

ADVENTURELAND, continued

Build-Out

Okay, so we’ve addressed three major considerations when it comes to Adventureland.

1. Adventureland is “too much” by having four sub-areas (African jungle, Arabian bazaar, Polynesian courtyard, and Caribbean plaza) that neither overlap enough to “swirl” nor stand strong enough to read as individual;

2. Adventureland is “not enough” by lacking a centering E-Ticket (which could also help its dissimilar environments “swirl”);

3. Adventureland’s Magic Carpets spinner is a problem, providing necessary capacity, but at the expense of show.

My plan for Adventureland tries to address this with a few fixes. First, you’ll notice that I have booted the Caribbean Plaza area from Adventureland entirely. (We’ll dive into its fate later on, and I suspect it’s not what you’d guess.) We’ve also gotten rid of the Arabian area, through a very unorthodox and Blue Sky solution.

Even if it pushes the limits of what “realistic and reasonable” can offer, I’ve made one key switch that I think sets this land in such a better place: I have switched the locations of the flat ride and the treehouse walk-through, and given them both a thematic tune-up. Bear with me, because I really think this is a win-win.

Now, as we navigate through the colonial jungle outpost at the land’s entry, we see bridges that lead not to the Swiss Family Robinson treehouse, but across the jungle river to a refreshed flat ride: TRADER SAM’S TIKI TWIRL. I envision this ride not as yet another Dumbo, but as a Mack Twist ‘n’ Splash (above), placing guests in twirling tubs constructed from driftwood and plane wreckage. With this model, as the cycle begins, water fills the ride area. Then – as on a “teacups” ride – circular platforms begin to spin, activating at-seat, crank-powered water guns. Riders can spray each other or onlookers, while being sprayed by tikis positioned around the pool.

I feel like this ride effectively adds something new to the park, and comes with a lot of perks. It’s appropriate for the Florida weather; it’s a “ride disguised as a ride” – appearing as some contraption that Trader Sam has assembled for us; it’s on its own “island” surrounded in jungle foliage, disguising it versus the awful Magic Carpets; and it helps to serve as a “swirl” of its own, mixing Jungle Cruise lore with Tiki decor. Phew!

As a bonus, relocating the treehouse walkthrough to the former Magic Carpets site (right in the middle of the land’s central plaza) creates another perfect swirl: the TROPICAL TREEHOUSE. I envision this attraction sending guests climbing through interactive treetop labs and outposts established by the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. as they study one of the tree’s most inexplicable properties: dozens and dozens of colorful birds (via Audio-Animatronics) have flocked (no pun intended) to its branches, creating a vibrant, musical, living display of the jungle’s feathered residents.

The benefits go even further. By positioning this Tropical Treehouse in the very central spot that the Magic Carpets used to occupy, we have created a visual “weenie” for the land visible from its entry and turned that Carpets courtyard into a beautifully shaded space. Now, Dole Whips and Citrus Swirls can be sold from the collection of stands around the tree’s perimeter, with plentiful shaded dining among its roots – a sort of ad hoc version of Disneyland’s Tropical Hideaway. Perhaps we’d even see a dedicated meet-and-greet space for the little Orange Bird!

Put simply, just swapping the treehouse and flat ride physically and conceptually create in this remnant of the “original” Adventureland a wonderful little swirl that still has its distinct features, but “flows” rather than starting and stopping. THE ENCHANTED TIKI ROOM, JUNGLE CRUISE, the SKIPPER CANTEEN, the Tropical Treehouse, and Trader Sam’s Tiki Twirl feel like parts of a whole.

But now, Adventureland continues. It’s well known that in the mid-’90s, Disney cooked up several big budget concepts for Walt Disney World that would’ve continued the scale of the legendary “Ride the Movies” era onward into the 2000s. The ideas largely existed as “Break Glass In Case of Competition,” as Disney stared down the barrel of the looming threat of Universal’s Islands of Adventure. Unfortunately for us all, Islands of Adventure was the victim of an infamous mis-marketing campaign, meaning plans for major projects in Walt Disney World were left in the archives. For my build-out, I’ve decided to revive one.

Fire Mountain is a project that existed in several forms across the ’90s. (For example, an IP-infused late-’90s redux tied it to Disney’s 2001 adventure film Atlantis: The Lost Empire, above; rumors suggested that the project was back into consideration in the last decade, this time thanks to Moana.) Like all unproduced WDI projects, timelines and concept iterations are hard to sort out, but we know in general that all plans called for Fire Mountain to be a roller coaster, essentially mimicking the placement of Indiana Jones Adventure at Disneyland – outside of the Railroad, southwest of the park, and accessed via a narrow passage between the Jungle Cruise and Pirates’ showbuilding.

For my build-out, I have the benefit of having rerouted the Railroad, which creates more space for a proper sub-section of Adventureland here. I didn’t want to totally depart from the world we saw back in the Jungle Cruise “neighborhood” (where the Skipper Canteen is), but I did want this new zone of it to lean slightly more in the science-fiction, fantastical, almost steampunk-y direction. Still rich, still opulent, but here, we’re seeing the newest outpost of the Jungle Navigation Co. Ltd. or S.E.A., where an expedition company has pushed further into the unknown.

Through a narrow, jungled, volcanic valley, we’re deposited into a the new encampment, with the looming Fire Mountain ahead. This expedition is headed up by legendary adventurer, academic, and volcanologist, Professor Philomena Fogg (“Where fire and water meet, you’ll find Fogg!”). Focused on harnessing the power of Fire Mountain, Fogg and her team have developed a number of cutting edge technologies meant to forge ever-further into the flaming, pressurized peak. Until then, the outpost – still under construction, marked by bamboo scaffolds and strung excavation lamps – is home to THE EXPLORERS CLUB –  an elaborate Quick Service eatery and snacketeria serving as an extended ode and homage to the Lost Legend: The Adventurers Club.

Basically, I wanted to give Magic Kingdom a weatherproof equivalent of Disneyland’s Tropical Hideaway – a place where guests can “Dole Whip & Chill” while waiting for a Lightning Lane reservation and bask in the ambiance and mythology of the park. In this case, that means bao buns, lumpia, and the signature “Fogg Freeze” – a chilled, bubbling mug beverage served with dry ice.

I also tried something a little different by using the old Railroad’s layout to have a pedestrian trestle over the land, connecting guests of the Explorers Club to a “secret” ARCHIVE BAR located in the second story of the building across the path.

In an attempt to make the most of this real estate, this new sub-section of Adventureland contains four attractions – each a unique way that Fogg and her team have come to collect energy from the mountain itself. The first is THERMAL SPRINGS, a soft-floored family splash pad in which young explorers can both take to the controls that harness the area’s natural steam and spray, and then explore it themselves in interactive fountain play.

Beyond resides STEAM SKIMMERS – a no-height-requirement attraction borrowing from Tokyo DisneySea’s trackless, LPS-guided Aquatopia. Here, trackless rafts skim along the top of a glowing, steaming pool of lava, continuously churned by “lavafalls” pouring from Fire Mountain itself. This trackless ride sees the steampink-stylized rafts travel “randomly” through obstacles including steam vents, lavafalls, rocky outcroppings, and more as the vehicles advance, reverse, spin, sputter, and dance around each other.

The final two rides reside inside the mountain itself. The first is LAVA LAUNCH, a family S&S compressed-air launch tower that uses the mountain’s steam pressure to blast riders up and out of a rocky crevice in the peak. (The photo above is of a Moser family drop tower, but captures what I’m going for with a small-ish tower that “pops” out of the volcano’s structure.) With two towers, it’s a low-mid capacity family addition, but provides Adventureland with another flat ride, and a nice gateway experience to the bigger thrills of the land’s new signature E-Ticket.

That, of course, is FIRE MOUNTAIN itself. I dedicated to use Fire Mountain to fill the gap in this park that TRON Lightcycle Run fulfills in the real park. (Spoiler: my version of the park doesn’t have TRON Lightcycle Run.) Rather than motorbike seating, I went with Intamin’s two-across inverted coaster (definitely subconsciously shaped by the Lost Legend: VOLCANO – The Blast Coaster).

Borrowing TRON’s opening act, this ride would see guests’ trains roll into a lava tube, then be propelled by the mountain’s pressure into a 0 – 60 mph launch, exploding out of the mountain’s side, gliding over the lava lagoon that the Steam Skimmers ride across, then dipping toward the boiling surface and racing back into the mountain for a second launch into a twisting, inverting, high-thrill ride blasting in and out of the peak.

To my thinking, this refreshed and expanded Adventureland is still distinctly itself – a mix of stories and styles that wouldn’t work in Anaheim or Paris or Shanghai or Hong Kong any more than their Adventurelands would fit in Florida. More to the point, this mix of Jungle Cruise, Tiki Room, and Fire Mountain feels pleasantly cohesive. “Swirled,” but in a way fitting this park and its “richer,” sturdier, more “feminine” aesthetic. Plus suddenly, Magic Kingdom’s tiny little “landlocked” Adventureland becomes home to three family flat rides (Tiki Twirl, Steam Skimmers, and Lava Launch), two signature rides (Jungle Cruise and Fire Mountain), the classic Tiki Room, and a splash pad. Not bad!

But what about Caribbean Plaza and Pirates of the Caribbean? Hmm…

Aside: The pirate predicament…

At Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean isn’t in Adventureland at all, and instead exists on the periphery of it, cleverly serving as a wedge between Adventure, Frontier, and the land it officially resides in, New Orleans Square. New Orleans Square is often considered the most beautiful classic Disney Parks “land” on Earth, and Pirates, Walt’s magnum opus. (Tokyo Disneyland splits the difference. There, Pirates is in Adventureland, but rather than a “Caribbean Plaza,” it’s a “New Orleans Square” sub-section of the land.)

As you probably know by making it even this far into an exhaustive written report like this, Magic Kingdom was never meant to have Pirates of the Caribbean. As the story goes, Imagineers had figured that New Orleans, Deep South architecture and food, stories of pirates, and sailing ships weren’t magical enough for the Magic Kingdom. Rather, they were quite local – pirates are part of Florida history, after all. 

Instead, Disney Legend and Pirates designer Marc Davis envisioned taking the pirate ride’s ingredients and exporting it to Frontierland by way of an epic, original, Florida-exclusive dark ride that we explored in-depth in our Possibilityland: Western River Expedition story. With all the scale and scope of Pirates but a “Cowboys & Indians” theme, Davis’ dark ride would’ve been a spectacular “Phase II” addition to Magic Kingdom… but ultimately, guests’ demands for the Pirate ride saw a fast-tracked version of Pirates built for Magic Kingdom in time for its third year.

There are few who would bother arguing that Magic Kingdom’s Pirates of the Caribbean approaches the brilliance of Disneyland’s. The Florida ride clocks in at less than half the length, for starters, and omits many of Disneyland’s more atmospheric or contemplative scenes (more than likely because Davis figured that he should cut scenes that would feel duplicative in Western River Expedition, holding out hope that one day the park would have both).

Even so, we as fans must continually remind ourselves that most visitors to Walt Disney World don’t care that Disneyland exists at all, much less do they ride Pirates and think, “Man, what a shame that this is the least-good version of the ride.” For hundreds of millions of visitors over the last fifty years, Magic Kingdom’s version of the ride might as well be the only version of the ride. And even if it isn’t the definitive form, it is – by any standard – a classic, now having been a part of the park for half a century.

Realistically, Pirates of the Caribbean will probably never be removed from Magic Kingdom, and it’s one of few rides that I think Disney World’s otherwise fairly brand-allied “typical visitors” probably would take up arms to defend. But if we’re playing with company money here and trying to be bold in the ways that we reimagine Magic Kingdom, I hope you’ll let me play around for a moment and think a little outside the box in hopes of really reinvigorating this park…